
America pauses this week—as we do every year on this first Monday in September—to rest from and to recall the dignity of work. The Church’s reflection on the nature and importance of work is extensive, especially in the twentieth-century. While it’s an over-simplification to say that Her first formal treatment of work was Leo XIII’s historic encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), the “social question” of work took on special meaning by the end of the nineteenth-century and the Popes, beginning with Leo XIII, responded in kind. You’ll notice that a significant number of the quotes offered here come from Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical on human work Laborem Exercens, promulgated in 1981. While this was not by any means the first or only teaching from the Church or from a Pope on work (the encyclical itself is a reflection on the ninetieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum), it does however, focus on the essential nature of work, slightly more so than other of the reflections on the theme from various Popes in the twentieth-century, and so is especially relevant for us to consider on Labor Day.
The Church’s duty to teach on work
“The Church considers it her duty to speak out on work from the viewpoint of its human value and of the moral order to which it belongs, and she sees this as one of her important tasks within the service that she renders to the evangelical message as a whole.” (Laborem Exercens, 24)
Man participates in Creation through his work
“The word of God’s revelation is profoundly marked by the fundamental truth that man, created in the image of God, shares by his work in the activity of the Creator and that, within the limits of his own human capabilities, man in a sense continues to develop that activity, and perfects it as he advances further and further in the discovery of the resources and values contained in the whole of creation.” (Laborem Exercens, 25)
The Church’s duty to teach on work
“…the basis for determining the value of human work is not primarily the kind of work being done but the fact that the one who is doing it is a person…however true it may be that man is destined for work and called to it, in the first place work is ‘for man’ and not man ‘for work’.” (Laborem Exercens, 6)
Work is about far more than work
“…work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question…” (Laborem Exercens, 3)
Socialism causes more problems than it seeks to solve
“…socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.” (Rerum Novarum, 4)
Work is an essential element of the human experience
“The Church is convinced that work is a fundamental dimension of man’s existence on earth. She is confirmed in this conviction by considering the whole heritage of the many sciences devoted to man: anthropology, palaeontology, history, sociology, psychology and so on; they all seem to bear witness to this reality in an irrefutable way. But the source of the Church’s conviction is above all the revealed word of God, and therefore what is a conviction of the intellect is also a conviction of faith.” (Laborem Exercens, 4)
Technology should aid, not replace the work carried out by man
“…technology is undoubtedly man’s ally. It facilitates his work, perfects, accelerates and augments it. It leads to an increase in the quantity of things produced by work, and in many cases improves their quality. However, it is also a fact that, in some instances, technology can cease to be man’s ally and become almost his enemy, as when the mechanization of work “supplants” him, taking away all personal satisfaction and the incentive to creativity and responsibility, when it deprives many workers of their previous employment, or when, through exalting the machine, it reduces man to the status of its slave.” (Laborem Exercens, 5)
Work makes possible and is directed first toward the family
“Work constitutes a foundation for the formation of family life, which is a natural right and something that man is called to…In a way, work is a condition for making it possible to found a family, since the family requires the means of subsistence which man normally gains through work. Work and industriousness also influence the whole process of education in the family, for the very reason that everyone ‘becomes a human being’ through, among other things, work, and becoming a human being is precisely the main purpose of the whole process of education…In fact, the family is simultaneously a community made possible by work and the first school of work, within the home, for every person.” (Laborem Exercens, 10)
Work itself is more important than what is produced
“…the principle of the priority of labour over capital is a postulate of the order of social morality.” (Laborem Exercens, 15)
To reiterate…
“Once more the fundamental principle must be repeated: the hierarchy of values and the profound meaning of work itself require that capital should be at the service of labour and not labour at the service of capital.” (Laborem Exercans, 23)
Workers should be paid a “living wage”, which means…
“Just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remuneration which will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future. Such remuneration can be given either through what is called a family wage-that is, a single salary given to the head of the family for his work, sufficient for the needs of the family without the other spouse having to take up gainful employment outside the home-or through other social measures such as family allowances or grants to mothers devoting themselves exclusively to their families.” (Laborem Exercens, 19)
Women should not be penalized for being moms…Being a mother is work
“The true advancement of women requires that labour should be structured in such a way that women do not have to pay for their advancement by abandoning what is specific to them and at the expense of the family, in which women as mothers have an irreplaceable role.” (Laborem Exercens, 19)
Rest is an important aspect of work
“Man ought to imitate God both in working and also in resting, since God himself wished to present his own creative activity under the form of work and rest.” (Laborem Exercens, 25)
Work is, for the Christian, a vocation
“Considered from a Christian point of view, work has an even loftier connotation. It is directed to the establishment of a supernatural order here on earth…” (Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, 28)
Work should promote solidarity
“…when work is done in common— when hope, hardship, ambition and joy are shared—it brings together and firmly unites the wills, minds and hearts of men. In its accomplishment, men find themselves to be brothers.” (Populorum Progressio, 27)